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I am not dead, nor worse, deployed (not so much for my sake is being deployed worse than dead, but for the rest of my friends and family. If I'm dead they can grieve, when I'm deployed they worry. That nagging sense that all the evil things which might happen are happening, every moment of every day).

I've been away. Thursday I left for drill. Drive to L.A., drive to Cp. Pendleton, where we did some training, I taught some classes on the theory of interrogation (no point in doing the practice, my guys know the drill. I want to make sure they know the why, and the why not. Pound into their heads (and that of the support troops, why my way is better. And... in the back of their minds, to let them know that if I catch them stepping out of line, they'll get a chance to look at the world from inside the bars, but I digress) ran some weapons drills, did some convoy drills, got drownproofed by the Marines (who have always been swell to us. It has been my pleasure to suffer for their edification. killslowly and I have been sources to their interrogators when they needed help prepping for a MEU, which was cold, and hard and long, with lying guards [bastard said the brig shower was warm, he lied] and walking into the bowels of the USS Belleau Wood with a bag on my head, blind as a bat and with my shoes untied) and generally had the usually swell time we have at Pendleton.

It's a pretty place and I don't have to live there.

Maia has needed the internet machine (My laptop decided the internet didn't exist. It was kind enough to do this after I got to Walter Reed, so while I was in The Box I was able to let people know that the aforementioned horrors hadn't happened to me. I pop in the wireless card, or hook up a cable and it sees the network. I try to go anywhere and it tells me I have a DNS error), because it's finals week and two of her classes have had take home tests, which demand lots of research. For the past three days she has been sitting at the keyboard, swearing at Microsoft in specific, and the nature of computers (with which she doesn't really get along) in general.

Me, I have a ton of pictures to work through (some of which I intend to post, it has been awhile since I tweaked any, and now I've got a calibrated bunch of monitors, so I can feel better about what I show the world. If you like them, talk to me, prices will be reasonable) and have not had a real urge to write.

Dinner last night was nothing special. Complaints were raised at St. Paddy's day that the cabbage didn't taste enoug of broth, so I did it again. Since this is the last Tuesday Night Supper Club for a bit (we are heading to LA on Monday, and then to the Paria, in Utah, on the 18th, which will be a trip of about 10 days) it seemed reasonable to 1: make something which needed little real work (everything was boiled, save the bread) and 2: to bookend it with a reprise of the first nights menu.

It was interesting. When I thought about it, save the potatoes, nothing on the menu wasn't from the Old World. Breakfast this morning was the same. I did a scramble with bacon, basil, chives and some Cotswold cheese (a Gloucester style cheese, which scallion tops). A few twists of black pepper and the mess was complete. For myself I added some stilton.

To do this right the trick is, as with all other dishes, timing. Mix the eggs and the chives (from the barrel of the cutting grape... the eggs were from our chickens) in a bowl. Fry the bacon. Clean the pan. Crumble the bacon, tear the basil into pieces and the cheese into small chunks. Toss the egg/chives mix into the pan. When you start to stir (for fluffier eggs, add a touch of water, the steam will make them lighter. Cream makes them richer, but the proteins in the milk coagulate, so they stay about the same density) add the bacon. At the 2/3rds point, add the cheese. When the bits on the bottom are starting to melt, toss in the basil, kill the fire and stir a bit. If you want to add the stilton this is the time.

Serve.

On my way home, Monday, traffic came to stop near La Conchita (it was not a fun trip, in either direction to drive. The number of people being aggressively stupid, and demonstrating a lack of driving skill [much less manners] always amazes me [which leads me to think I have a better opinion of most peoples intelligence than I think I do, elst I wouldn't be so regularly surprised] but this weekend was worse than most. From the guy who decided left turns not only have the right of way, but are to be committed at the beginning of the light, to the people who pulled into the passing lane, to spend the next ten miles not passing the car on the right, it was a catalogue of how not to drive).

I stopped at the beach, and took pictures of the pelicans and the surfers, as they flew atop the waves, in their respective ways, for about two hours.

My camera pleasantly surprised me. It predicts how many images I can store. Shooting nought but RAW files it predicts 318 (a 2GB CF drive). With the large amounts of sky in the frame (I got all but a couple of people stepping off the 20 ft tower into the pool at Pendleton, and those were all on 5 fps bursts) I had some 350 pictures when I pulled over. I was a tad above 500 when I got in the car to drive off, and it said I had room for 25 more.

So I have a lot of pictures to sort.

Oh yeah, today is Frank Lloyd Wright's birthday. You may not care much for his architecture (I thinks it's, OK) but he certainly had an effect.

A revelation

On the self absorbed assumption that at least one of you wondered what is the smell of.

It's dirt.

I really like the smell of dirt, which is good because I spend a lot of time in, and around, it.

Foxholes, hasty fighting positions, quick bits of cover, artillery bunkers (like a bomb shelter, only different).

The feel of it, close to the body when one is trembling (with fear, or anticipation, or both). The unyielding give when it bounces from a nearby explosion, and throws one into the air, like a grain of rice on a drumhead, with bruises from one's buttons. Unforgettable.

The soft nature of good humous dirt, leaf mold and worm castings. The way one's fingers can just lift it, and crumble it (almost as if it were the vat of spermaceti oil Ishmael discusses squeezing with his hands) smoothly breaking. The warm reek of a freshly opened compost heap, and the chunk of the mattock when turning the soil to amend that compost into. The dusty feel of it in the nose when summer rain hits the garden. The squish of it between the toes.

Seeing the layers as one digs a trench (unless one needs, truly needs, the money, do not get a job digging trenching for sprinkler sysyems in Phoenix, in July), and the gritty nature of sand on the face from a day near the beach, or walking an arroyo.

The unmistakable smell of rain in the desert, water and dirt commingling, and still separate.

Dirt is my favorite smell.